“Actually, your past successes are your biggest obstacle: every battle, every war, is different, and you cannot assume that what worked before will work today.”

When it comes to power, outshining the master is perhaps the worst mistake of all.

I just do what I want to do without hurting other people and you know, I wish other people would do the same.

People go into things for the wrong reasons.

Many a serious thinker has been produced in prisons, where we have nothing to do but think.

Nothing is given to you.

The moment people feel they know what to expect from you, your spell on them is broken.

I believe that everything happens for a reason, and what seems bad at first might in fact be something of a blessing.

The problem with human beings is that they can’t sit alone in a room for more than an hour.

Boldness makes even the smallest animal dangerous.

For the future, the motto is, “No days unalert.”

What’s good for me is certainly not good for other people.

Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter.

When our emotions are engaged, we often have trouble seeing things as they are.

There’s no more of an excuse for blaming other people or the world for at least not trying what you should be trying.

It is the fool who always rushes to take sides. Do not commit to any side or cause by yourself. By maintaining your independence, you become the master of others — playing people against one another, making them pursue you.

Keep your friends for friendship, but work with the skilled and competent

Rational discussion is useful only when there is a significant base of shared assumptions.

The universe is full of dead people who lived by assumption.

Begin challenging your own assumptions.

There is the greatest difference between presuming an opinion to be true, because, with every opportunity for contesting it, it has not been refuted, and assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation.

All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.

Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while or the light won’t come in. If you challenge your own, you won’t be so quick to accept the unchallenged assumptions of others.

Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won’t come in.

Love can only consist in failure…on the fallacious assumption that it is a relationship. But it is not. It is a production of truth.